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Sunday, March 09, 2008

Question for Barack Obama: Why is Afghanistan the 'Right War'? By ROBIN BLACKBURN

Barack Obama evidently needs to sharpen up his act. Probably most urgent is his need to develop a more radical economic program. But he should also reconsider his posture on the US mission in Afghanistan as fighting the right war while Iraq has been the wrong war. ‘The Iraq war’, he is quoted as saying. ‘distracted us from the fight that needed to be fought in Afghanistan against Al Qaeda’.

Remarks like this sparked exchanges with McCain over exactly when Al Qaeda established itself in Iraq. While Obama had the better of this exchange the puzzle remained: surely the Al Qaeda leadership left Afghanistan shortly after the toppling of the Taliban and there have been no Al Qaeda training camps there for many years? Al Qaeda’s leaders and bases are now in Pakistan – and are very probably some distance from the border. The fighting in Afghanistan is against a resurgent Taliban, with Al Qaeda playing a very minor role.

Following 9-11 the Bush administration vowed to destroy Al Qaeda but only succeeded in getting it to withdraw to Pakistan. Pakistani police action has been far more effective at capturing senior Al Qaeda operatives than NATO military action. Rounding up the remnant of Al Qaeda central in Waziristan – said to number just 140 fighters – is a problem for the Pakistani government and security services. A Kabul government dependent on NATO can do nothing to dissuade the Waziris from giving shelter to Al Qaeda. Quite the reverse, it makes the hospitality obligatory.

So why in the West still in Afghanistan? ‘West’ here means NATO as well as the US. Actually it’s a question that several NATO countries are beginning to ask ahead of the NATO meeting in Bucharest in April which is meant to review progress. The US and Britain urge a bigger effort while some states have contributed nothing and others, such as Germany, have insisted that their troops remain in quiet northern provinces.

Listening to Joop Scheffer, NATO’s Secretary General, justify the alliance’s presence to a Brooking audience on February 28 ‘mission’ creep was evident. The ‘war on terror’ was passed over fairly quickly with greater emphasis on building democracy, though Scheffer warned that it would be unrealistic to expect this tribal society to become a Western democracy any time soon. Warming to his theme Scheffer urged that Afghanistan was strategically vital. He reminded his audience that the country has a border with China and lies on Russia’s southern flank. In the 21st century, he insisted, we had to take the defence and control of energy resources very seriously and Afghanistan lies athwart potential transportation routes from central Asia.

While this candor about imperialist objectives is refreshing it does nothing to strengthen the legal justification for a continuing occupation.

Neither NATO nor US ground forces overthrew the Taliban in 2001. This was the work of the Northern Alliance, with the approval of Pakistan and help from US airpower and special forces. The US dollar, stronger then than now, played an important role in purchasing changes in loyalties. The US role depended on the collaboration of Russia. Iran and Pakistan, with the use of Uzbeki and Tajik facilities and China’s blessing. Without the ‘group of six’ – none of whom are NATO members - the whole operation would not have been possible.

A Security Council resolution in December 2001 supplied UN cover for the removal of the Taliban and endorsed the despatch of an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which at first was meant to last no more than six months and to be confined to area around Kabul. The objective was destroy Al Qaeda facilities, this being a goal that China, Russia, Iran and Pakistan could all agree on. Subsequently the Karzai government requested aid from the occupiers - but then, the Karzai government was established by these same occupiers, so this only furnishes a circular justification.

The ISAF now operates under the terms of the UN Security Council 1776 (2007) which declares that its task is to ‘root out terrorism’ and that Afghanistan remains ‘a threat to world peace’. For much of the period 2002 to 2006 there was little terrorist activity and renewed Taliban attacks in the last year or two are to be explained by the protracted occupation of the country. NATO commanders are well aware that the term Taliban now covers a loose alliance of those opposed to the occupation and the government. The British and other NATO forces know full well how weakly-defined the Taliban are and have entered local agreements with the Taliban on several occasions. In 2005 Abdul Hakim Monib was on the NATO want list of Al Qaeda commanders; by 2007 he was governor of Uruzgang province.

All this being the case it has to be asked whether the mission is still valid, even on its own terms. It is striking that those with real knowledge of the country say that the NATO presence is as illegitimate by most Afghanis and has destroyed Karzai’s credibility. Rory Stewart, who has been living and working in Afghanistan for several years, explained this in Prospect magazine, published from London, in January. Sarah Chayes, a former NPR reporter who has also been living and working in Afghanistan, explained to Bill Moyers in a mid-February edition of his TV Journal, that government officials are widely seen as robbers and crooks. Stewart and Chayes are not radical critics of Western policy but, unlike Samantha Power – a liberal interventionist and one of Obama’s advisors – they have enough real knowledge of the country and region to see that the NATO mission is self-defeating. It is also wrong, as Tariq Ali and Patrick Cockburn have urged, because the Afghani people need to reach their own solutions.

Let’s return to Obama’s problem. The job he wants is that of running the US empire and in order to win it he has to run a gauntlet of demented imperialist attack dogs. What he can, and to some extent does, argue is that a US military wind down from exposed positions is very much in the US national interest. He has urged withdrawal from Iraq on these grounds and he’s right. So why not make the case for Afghan withdrawal too? The country has much less oil and many fewer terrorists than Iraq.

If the US and NATO forces were withdrawn the likelihood is that the Afghan government would need to come to a new understanding with regional and tribal militias. Some of the latter might have ties to the Taliban, but they don’t want to see it – still less Al Qaeda – running the country again. The seven million refugees who have returned since 2001 will scarcely favour the Taliban even if they would like to see a less corrupt administration.

If the Afghan government felt that it could not handle the situation it might call for help on Pakistan, Iran and Turkey – three countries with historic ties to different sections of the Afghan population. Help from this quarter would be much less compromising than accepting it from the NATO-led occupiers.

What I’m talking about here is an enlightened US policy which grasps that imperial missions breed resistance and danger in a region that has a long tradition of hostility to uninvited foreigners, especially if infidel.

Robin Blackburn is the author of Age Shock: How Finance Is Failing Us (2007), a comprehensive account of risk and social insecurity in the age of financialization. He can be reached at robinblackburn68@hotmail.com

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"A petty reason perhaps why novelists more and more try to keep a distance from journalists is that novelists are trying to write the truth and journalists are trying to write fiction." Graham Greene

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Togs's Place.Com is a massive blog/web site. To get around and find articles you want or just explore, use the SEARCH BLOG, if you enter Noam Chomsky, you'll not only come up with numerous articles, speeches, interviews by and with Chomsky, but also being referred to in articles by Robert Fisk, John Pilger, Naomi Kline and myself. With Blogger you've got to scroll down from the most recent till the oldest. Every posting has a label ie, New Romans;Middle East from May 18 07 to today, this is a new system I've adopted for labels, previous labels on this topic were New Romans;Middle East 4, 3, 2, 1. These numbers go backwards to when I started this site in October 2006. New Romans;Middle East from May 18 07 to today will relabeled New Romans;Middle East from May 18 to June 10 07 for easy reference and the new label will be New Romans;Middle East from June 10 07 to today. The Recent Posts is the quick link to my Recent Postings. The Links can take you to 170 different web sites in Australia and around the World.

It's been a learning experience for me operating this blog but there is an insatiable hunger for alternative news and opinion on a range of issues in Australia that is often ignored or sidelined by the corporate media and an increasing self censored and Murdoch managed ABC.

Journalists and Writers I Like.

"Bread and work and love, the poor man’s trinity, and by all three needs they chain him down." Christina Stead 1902-1983 Seven Poor Men of Sydney

"Every government is run by liars and nothing should be believed." I.F.Stone 1907-89

"I have made more friends for American culture than the State Department. Certainly I have made fewer enemies, but that isn't very difficult." Arthur Miler 1915-2005

"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act." George Orwell 1903-50

"It is not enough for journalists to see themselves as mere messengers without understandig the hidden agendas of the message that surrounds it." John Pilger

"Lots of people who complained about us receiving the MBE received theirs for heroism in the war - for killing people. We received ours for entertaining other people. I'd say we deserve ours more." Joesph Heller 1923-99

"Media is just a word that has come to mean bad journalism." Graham Greene 1904-91

"My experience in the First World War and now the Second World War [his son Barney was killed in the Battle of Singapore] changed my outlook on things. It is hard to believe that there is a God. I feel the Bible is a book written by man but for the purpose of preying on a person’s conscience, and to confuse him. Anyone who taken part in a bayonet charge (and I have) [Gallipoli], and has managed to retain his proper senses, must doubt the truth of the Bible and the powers of God, if one exists. And considering the many hundreds of different religions that there are in this world of ours, and the fact that many religions have caused terrible wars and hatreds throughout the world, and that many religions that have hoarded tremendous wealth and property while people inside and outside religion are starving , it is difficult to remain a believer. No Sir, there is no God, it is only a myth." Albert Facey 1894-1982 A Fortunate Life

"Now take my case. I’m twenty-nine and have two brothers—one in the Liberal Party and one serving six years for rape and arson. My sister Peg is on the streets and Dad lives off her earnings. Mum is pregnant by the boarder and because of this Dad won’t marry her. Last night I got engaged to an ex-prostitute and I wish to be fair to her: should I tell her about my brother in the Liberal Party." David Ireland 1927- The Unknown Industrial Prisoner

"Prime Minster Howard I’ve heard You met George Bush and the Pope too, I understand, Oh I liked the Pope much better, I only had to kiss his hand." L’Amour Denis Kevans 1939-2005

"The first law of journalism-to confirm existing prejudice rather than contradict it." Alexander Cockburn

"The Labour Party [ALP], starting with a band of inspired Socialists, degenerated into a vast machine for capturing political power, but did not know how to use the power when attained except for the profit of individuals[...] Such is the history of all Labour organisations in Australia, and not because they are Australian , but because they are Labour..." Victor Gordon Childe 1892-1957, How Labour Governs

"The trouble with a free market economy is that it requires so many policemen to make it work." Neal Ascherson, 1932- Games with the Shadows, Policing the Marketplace.

"The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag. I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket. There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its "finger men" to point out enemies, its "muscle men" to destroy enemies, its "brain men" to plan war preparations, and a "Big Boss" Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism. It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. " Major General Smedley Butler,1881-1940

"What is the crime of robbing a bank compared with the crime of founding one." Bertolt Brecht 1898-1956

"Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say?" Kurt Vonnegut 1922-2007

[Battler]" a conscientious person working against many odds to make a living; one whose life is a constant struggle.’ Battlers maybe men or women; black or white. They rarely deal with racism (the negative side of our tradition) because they sympathise with anyone facing adversity or unfair criticism. The term ‘battler’ is a state of mind-a traditional attitude which goes back to the convict era, when the battler was on a flogging to nothing but fiddled around the rules and held his masters in contempt. The battlers are aware that they are being lied to by....politicians; and they suspect that Keating’s warning that Australia could become a banana republic is in fact, happening before their eyes." Frank Hardy 1917-1994. Retreat Australia Fair 1990

I don't respect the law; I have a total irreverence for anything connected with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper and the old men and old women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer. Brendan Behan 1923-64

“I do what I do, and write what I write, without calculating what is worth what and so on. Fortunately, I am not a banker or an accountant. I feel that there is a time when a political statement needs to be made and I make it.” Arundhati Roy